Rain Storm Soaks City

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Rain Storm Soaks City
07/18/2007 12:18 PM
By: NY1 News

Heavy rains soaked commuters around the city Wednesday, causing delays on the roads, rails and at the airports.

Getting around was not easy with plenty of roads flooded in Manhattan, but Queens appears to have been the hardest hit of the boroughs. At one point, Con Edison said about 2,400 Queens customers were without power.

There was heavy flooding and delays on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Woodside and in surrounding neighborhoods.

In Bayside and in Flushing, roads turned into rivers, sending waves down the streets. Pictures sent to NY1 by viewers show cars underwater and the roads made nearly impassable. Some left their vehicles, while others took action and pushed them out of the road.

Some residents in the area spent much of the day pumping out their basements after homes saw major flooding.

“Whenever there’s a real, real, heavy, heavy rain over the surrounding towns, if it’s centralized from town to town, it’s not that bad. But if it’s Woodside, Sunnyside, Elmhurst, since this is the lowest point in those areas, we get a lot of the water,” said one area resident.

"It was really horrible," said another. "I couldn't believe it."

"All our toys, all our balls, all of our working tools for our house," said a third. "And my paintings — everything got wet for me."

Some golfers at Clearview Golf Course in Queens were stranded at the clubhouse for hours after the storm turned the parking lot into a giant lake.

"It's very frustrating,” said one trapped golfer. “I had to pick someone up at 10:15 this morning and I had no way of getting out."

Crews from the city Department of Environmental Protection arrived later to free the golfers.

Meanwhile, commuters faced major delays and service interruptions on the city subways through this afternoon. The downpours also put Metro North and Long Island Rail Road trains out of commission.

Service was back to normal on Metro North by late morning and service on the F, V, R, and E trains had resumed by rush hour, but were running with residual delays.

LIRR riders experienced scattered delays of 15 to 20 minutes throughout the evening.

Those trying to head out of town experienced delays of up to three hours on departures at all three area airports. Passengers were urged to check with their airline before heading out.